


come drown, it's a rhythm you know

by dissintegrate



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Copious Allusions to Suicide, Depression, Dreams, Eating Disorders, F/F, Heavy Angst, Insomnia, Lucid Dreaming, Mentioned Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, as always i have no clue what im doing, dark shit, everything is vague and confusing like always, how did it end up like this, lapslock, mild hallucinations, sci-fi? ish? idk?, sooyoung is dead, the original idea i had for this was supposed to be magical realism fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-15 23:07:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13623411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dissintegrate/pseuds/dissintegrate
Summary: near the breezesomewhere in my dreamsi got depressed and started a war





	come drown, it's a rhythm you know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nymphisms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymphisms/gifts).



> dedicated to the loml
> 
> (the title, description and the names for each part are taken from "a life on standby" album by mud flow)

_the sense of me_

▽

a desk. in the middle of a field. all sharp corners, sleek polished oak. the field grew wildflowers, boisterous and blue and wine, mixed into tall yellowing grass.

at the desk sat a girl.

dark hair floating in the air.

seulgi began to walk. pulled toward it by the grass and the flowers. her feet bare, stepping through soft soil.

she took a seat at the wooden chair in front of the desk. in front of the girl. who smiled without teeth. who tipped her head to the side, floating hair following the movement.

she said, “welcome, i’m irene.”

voice of trembling mercury, reverberating silver bells.

she said, “i’ll be with you from now on. you can come here often.”

seulgi stared, mesmerised. serenity encircled them, ebbing off into the field.

“thank you,” seulgi said.

she couldn’t hear herself speak but she knew irene heard her.

“i’m glad it’s you,” seulgi said.

irene wrote something down on the paper at her desk. long fingers crooked around a thin pen, gripping with a force.

and then irene looked up. a wave of lashes lifting to reveal her eyes reflecting all the flowers.

she asked, “would you like to fall?”

the question didn’t register at first.

and she asked again before an answer. “or would you like to drown?”

“um.” seulgi looked around at all the flowers, at all the tall and wilting grass. “i’d like to to drown,” she said without a solid reason.

irene’s hand stopped moving the pen across the paper. clicked her tongue as if in thought. and then her eyes lit up.

she said, “it’ll hurt just a little bit, but not too bad, i promise.”

and then she disappeared together with the desk and with the field and all the flowers in the wilting grass.

colors disappeared. the water rose above her head.

breath caught in her throat, seulgi drowned.

into an airy gooey tacky nothing.

 

and when her eyes began to open, she woke up.

△

seulgi didn’t like living. at least not in the world that was considered her reality. she got up every morning and brushed her teeth and washed her face and got dressed before leaving for classes and she wanted to die.

currently she was at the stage of brushing her teeth.

fine white bristles scratching her teeth clean. a mechanical back and forth of spreading foam.

in the mirror she was all swollen eyes and flat hair and goosebumps on the bare skin of her arms.

she wanted to drown.

 

_chemicals_

△

(the day before)

the air in the lecture hall for business ethics was stale. muffled. a sleepy monotone. the professor was probably saying something. seulgi couldn’t distinguish his voice from the numbing buzz of shuffling, turning of pages, occasional coughs, whir of the air conditioner. the light of the projector was the same white as the wall.

in this place in time she wasn’t sure what distinguished her from the engineered-to-be-uncomfortable chair she sat in. no one had souls here.

seulgi didn’t know if her eyes were closed or opened when there was a nudge in her side.

turned out they were closed because she had to open them to look at the girl next to her.

seungwan’s wispy curls were falling in her eyes. she looked like a morgue; everything inside was dead except the people who kept it functioning.

“i can’t have lunch with you today,” she whispered, swallowed up in the buzz of white noise. “sorry.”

seulgi stared at her bony milk-white shoulder. “okay,” she said.

the tank-top strap looked like it was cutting right through the sharp edge of her acromion. dark red, like a line of dried blood. seulgi blinked away.

△

seulgi ate lunch alone. stuffed an entire sandwich into her stomach by ripping it into small pieces and swallowing after she chewed it into nonexistence. she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it tasted like.

she stared at one spot in the grass the entire time. the air was hot, the sun was beating down to the point of sweat. the shade of the tree didn’t try to help.

△

Above & Beyond Support Group Dance Party!

the banner hung ugly and sad over the entrance to the country club. seulgi hung out by the punch bowl, wearing the same exact dress as at least two other people at this dance party. the music was on just a little too loud to drown out all the silence.

a few people were trying to dance, the lights from one of those cheap party light machines sliding over them. everyone else was just kind of shuffling uncomfortably or leaning back against the walls. their group leader jung hoseok was trying to get more people to join him on the dancefloor but there were only so many things you could do to try and get a bunch of emotionally dead people to have fun when they were forced to be here in the first place.

this was sadder than sitting alone at home and staring at the wall.

but seulgi didn’t want to leave yet, even though her mandatory hour was up. some people were starting to trail out to the exit but most of them just stayed where they were. newton’s first law of motion and all.

not seulgi, though. before she even got here, she was already planning to leave as fast as she possibly could.

plans change, though. they change sometimes because life is unpredictable like that.

just like the girl in the middle of the dance floor.

she wasn’t really dancing. more just bobbing up and down, slightly off-beat, face expression a little too serious. her hair was long and black and, in this lighting, didn’t look like it belonged to her.

she never spoke at the group meetings. no one wanted to speak at a court-ordered support group but they at least tried, grumbled something every now and then. tried for hoseok who knew how to get people out of their shells.

but there was something different about her silence. bae joohyun. it wasn’t a sad defiant silence. it wasn’t even a resigned dead one, like seulgi’s was. instead it was observant. quiet and reserved and calm. she hasn’t said a single word since the first day introductions.

“bae joohyun.”

a breeze gently nudging a windchime.

she’d smiled without teeth.

hoseok never even once tried to get her to talk like he did with everyone else.

she didn’t belong with them.

and even now she was out of place once again. bobbing to her own beat like it wasn’t ridiculous. but seulgi liked looking at her. the corners of her eyes. the lines of her legs. the quiet shape of her breasts.

and seulgi wasn’t the only one. she’d caught the guys at the group giving her glances that were too slow to move on to something else.

bae joohyun. a mystery.

you’re always more attracted to the hidden parts.

and now joohyun was moving toward the punch bowl. seulgi forgot she was standing next to it. forgot she wasn’t nothing.

joohyun’s “excuse me” was soft and quiet, like a warm duvet and everything seulgi always tried to hang onto after she woke up from the few times she slept.

“sorry.” and seulgi stepped aside. tripped over her own feet but caught herself in time on the thin vinyl tablecloth, tearing a small piece off the edge.

joohyun’s cold hand wrapped around her arm to steady her and seulgi almost tripped again. but joohyun was already looking away, dropping her arm and picking up a clear plastic cup.

seulgi took a step back. just in time to see joohyun pour dark brown liquid into her punch from a mini jack daniels bottle. the bottle which she discreetly stuffed back into her clutch. and then she was gone, walking to the exit with her long fingers wrapped around the plastic cup.

and now seulgi was ready to go home. she glanced down at the punch table. the piece of tablecloth she ripped off was still in her fist. and on the table was a folded piece of paper. something joohyun must’ve dropped.

seulgi picked it up, and followed joohyun’s path out of the auditorium. she didn’t go after her. she went straight home. opened her fist to unfold the piece of paper, not even realizing as the piece of vinyl floated away in the warm breeze.

the paper turned out to be a garish flyer printout for some shady dream website.

Dreamy.

even the name was tacky.

the paper was crumpled with too many creases. joohyun probably meant to throw it away. maybe she was like seulgi who kept flyers and receipts and everything else she didn’t care enough about to throw away.

 

Spice up your dreams with one of our Dreamy™ Guides!

seulgi stared at the fading pink letters at her desk long after she got home. there was a website listed right in the middle, surrounded by small baby-blue clouds. she stared at it for so long the letters began to swim. began to float away into an ocean.

and when the hour hand on the clock inched away from the two, seulgi was pulling up her laptop and typing in the website address.

the homepage was just as gaudy and pink with ugly blue clouds everywhere. they had pictures of their Dreamy Guides displayed in two rows with their names.

a suga with sleepy eyes and a placid smile. a hani with ethereal lavender hair. a v flashing a v sign over his eye. seulgi stopped caring about the rest because her eyes landed on an irene. a smile without showing teeth and swirling galaxies in her pupils.

seulgi’s finger was already dragging against the mousepad to click the ‘sign up for your very own dreamy dreams!’ button.

she filled out the sign up form quickly enough until she got to the part where they wanted her neuro id. seulgi hesitated for a bit, mouse pointer hovering back and forth, trembling with shitty resolution.

this website was pretty shady. she shouldn’t give out something as important as her neuro id on some tacky dream site that she didn’t even know worked. on the other side, the premise of this website would be useless if it didn’t have access to its users’ neuro ids.

seulgi typed it in with a small pause between each number.

“submit.”

 

_today_

△

(a week after)

it wasn’t a good day today.

tuesdays never were.

tuesday was a stupid day.

seulgi forgot all her notes for the class presentation. she’d worked on them all night last night. the bags underneath her eyes were growing so dark that no concealer could cover them. not that she cared at this point to use concealer.

she hadn’t gone back to dreams with irene the entire week after that first night. she hasn’t even slept properly since then.

that wasn’t a surprise. it was late may. the time seulgi didn’t sleep more than usual and tried to avoid pools like the plague.

she got up from her seat right before it was her turn to do her presentation. she left the classroom without anyone even noticing or caring.

and she walked straight to the campus’ gymnasium. until she was standing right at the edge of the olympic pool, not even remembering how she got there. her mind cleared bit by bit as she stared at the dancing lines of white in the blue chlorinated water.

when she looked up, her eyes met seungwan’s, who was standing at the other side of the pool.

something so painful throbbed in seulgi’s chest that she had to squat down or she would’ve thrown herself into the pool and let herself drown. seungwan’s empty gaze followed her.

it was during times like this when seulgi wondered, truly wondered why she hasn’t killed herself yet.

why they both haven’t killed themselves yet.

like sooyoung did.

like sooyoung, bright happy upbeat sooyoung, who drowned herself in a pool because she wasn’t very bright or happy or upbeat when there was no one around to see it.

and seulgi was mostly over it. it’s been three years. she was over it. but the habits of sadness and emptiness and pain decided to stay.

and who wanted to stay around for that?

seulgi didn’t sleep. seungwan didn’t eat.

but seulgi was tired. in every sense of the word.

maybe if she wasn’t around it would stop.

she let her fingers dip into the water.

“seulgi.”

seungwan’s voice echoed, flat and heavy. and when seulgi looked up she saw the water reflect in seungwan’s eyes. glaring and trying not to spill over.

seulgi took her fingers out and stood up. cleared her throat and tried for seungwan because seungwan didn’t deserve to have her partner-in-suffering leave before she was finished suffering. even though seulgi was so fucking tired of trying.

△

when she got home later that day, she dropped on her bed and tried to sleep. with all the things she needed to do hovering over her like a tsunami about to swallow her whole.

after fifteen minutes of laying on her back with her eyes closed and feeling like a corpse, she sat up and pulled out her laptop. the pink website blinked to life at her. seulgi signed in and turned on another dream session. then she reached over for her bottle of sleeping pills and swallowed two dry.

▽

irene was waiting for her in the same field. hair floating behind her like she was underwater. her desk wasn’t around this time.

when seulgi took a step closer, they were suddenly underwater. the bottom of a pool.

“do you want to see your dead friend?” she asked.

seulgi held her breath even though she knew she would be able to breathe here.

she didn’t reply.

but then sooyoung was there, floating in front of irene. flesh a pale blue, her dress a wrinkled mess. she looked dead, every bit what seulgi’s nightmares looked like whenever she managed to fall asleep on her own.

she disappeared almost as fast as she appeared, though.

irene wrinkled her nose. “don’t you have any better images of her?” she asked.

seulgi finally let out a breath. it came out in small bubbles in front of her face.

“you only remember her after they pulled her out?” she asked again before seulgi could reply.

“that’s not healthy.”

as if seulgi didn’t already know.

as if seulgi didn’t already have a grief counselor she never visited and a court order to go to a support group and take crazy pills that wouldn’t let her sleep.

she wanted to wake up.

“wait.” irene took a step closer and they were back at the field again. the grass was so yellow.

“you can’t go anywhere yet.”

seulgi sighed. “take me somewhere nice then. this is supposed to be an escape not a therapy session.”

her voice sounded distorted. like she wasn’t actually hearing it.

“you don’t have any nice presets,” irene replied. her hand ripped out a burgundy poppy and twirled it in her fingers.

“it’s very dark in here.” she tapped her temple with the fingers holding the poppy.

seulgi asked, “aren’t you the one who’s supposed to come up with the presets?”

irene shook her head. “we just take your greatest desires and fantasies and play them out for you.”

the flower began wilting in her hand. she dropped it and gestured to the yellowing overgrown field. “this is the nicest spot i could find in your entire active imagination.”

“then take me to yours.” even in her dreams seulgi was tired. “create a world for me.”

“i can’t.” strands of dark hair caressed her face as if they were blown by invisible winds. “i can only go to the default room.”

irene took a step and now they were only a few feet apart.

they were in a generic room with no windows, a white couch and a glass coffee table. the carpet beneath seulgi’s feet felt soft.

irene was sitting on the couch and seulgi was sitting next to her. they were still facing each other. irene’s hair settled.

“you always stare at me during support group meetings.” this time irene hadn’t spoken out loud. “what do you think of when you look at me like that?”

seulgi didn’t want to wake up anymore.

bae joohyun.

the room began to fill with water.

“i think of what it would be like to crack you open,” seulgi said. her voice bounced off the white walls. “to see what’s under.”

and then she was drowning right into her bed. gasping as her eyes opened.

 

_debbie & charlie _

△

seungwan was in the hospital.

seulgi trailed down the hall until she reached the right room. seungwan was in a bed, tubes piercing into her paper-thin skin. like they wanted to tear her open.

it wasn’t anything seulgi hadn’t seen before.

her eyes were closed. the room was empty. seungwan’s mom and sister had long since given up on her.

seulgi sat in a chair and pulled out her homework.

an hour later seungwan’s quiet voice buried right into her ears.

“why doesn’t it end?”

“i don’t know if it hurts anymore.”

seulgi didn’t answer. plugged in all the right numbers into the formula and wrote out the equation in her notebook.

x = -∞

△

“it will end. there is always an end to things, good or bad,” hoseok advised with concerned care on his face. seulgi wished he could tell that to the girl clinging to her bones in the hospital bed.

seulgi wished that girl would believe it.

joohyun was sitting next to hoseok and nodding along. seulgi couldn’t stop expecting for her hair to start floating.

after the meeting was over, joohyun brushed against her as she was leaving.

“there isn’t anything under,” she said, a breath of spring perfume. “that’s why it’s kept covered.”

and if anything, it just made seulgi want to stare more.

 

_tribal dance_

▽

they sat facing each other on the white couch. legs in the lotus position.

white white white

seulgi reached over and touched irene’s shoulder with her finger.

irene tipped over backward and they were falling. stomach swooping. until they were sitting in the chairs at the support group meeting.

hoseok wasn’t there.

there were only ghostly shapes of people.

“uncover

cover

cover--

what’s underneath”

irene smirked. edge of her pink lips tilting up up up.

she was unzipped open. by the edge of her lips.

and there was nothing nothing--

but a swarm of moths. wings fluttering like dust. leaving papercuts on seulgi’s skin.

stop.

drown me.

but didn’t you ask for this?

▽

the lights were flickering. what a dark dark parking lot.

seulgi took irene’s hand.

take me somewhere calm.

irene intertwined their fingers. the dark turned comforting. a safe dark softness where only irene could be seen.

i think of you too often.

and irene’s skin glowed a warm golden. like a sacred golden statuette of a forbidden goddess.

seulgi traced the outline of her cheekbone, of her jaw. cold sharpness to the touch.

seulgi’s fingers were disintegrating into purple glitter. sparkling from the glow of irene.

“i don’t believe in you. you don’t exist.”

she couldn’t tell who said it but she began to drown.

▽

and if the world could stop, it did. light ceased to exist and so did darkness. time started to move sideways.

the blood stilled in her veins. she couldn’t feel her pulse.

“i want to stay like this forever,” seulgi said.

irene cut open seulgi’s chest with the tips of her fingers. there was no pain.

“forever doesn’t exist here,” she said.

pulled out tangled yarn and plastic tubes out of seulgi. she kept on taking more and more out. it didn’t end.

“then why is it not stopping?”

irene paused and looked up. a piece of red yarn tangled in her floating hair. she looked confused. “i don’t know.”

and she continued pulling out strings of red until both of them grew tired and the water began to rise.

▽

seulgi was happy. for some reason.

irene was not.

they were on a boat in the middle of the storm. seulgi liked the silver of the lightning.

“can i want you? in both worlds?” she asked.

the storm swallowed it all and irene whirled on her, hair whipping around with the force.

“how did you get here?” irene asked.

“how did you get here how did you how “

how ho w h o  w

the wind was wailing like a wounded animal, like a dying siren.

“you love me don’t you. you. love. me.” seulgi didn’t hear her own voice. it was stuck. and barricaded. with a hand around her throat.

she didn’t know if irene heard.

but irene’s hair settled still. the wind whirled around her like a hurricane. and she was the eye.

the boat began to break down underneath them and the sea was swallowing them whole.

“goodbye. you won’t see me anymore.”

irene was happy. for some reason.

seulgi was not.

 

_how i got depressed_

△

the clock was ticking toward seven o’clock. there was a lull in discussion. the wooden chair felt too cold against seulgi’s back.

and then joohyun spoke up. for the first time since the first day.

“i killed my friend,” she said. voice soft and lulling.

she was wearing a black turtleneck dress. in this weather.

“i pushed her into the pool and held her down until she stopped struggling to breathe.”

her eyeliner matched the color of her stilettos. a dark wine red.

“she held my hand. the hand that was holding her down. she held it in place so i wouldn’t move it. so i would make her drown.”

hoseok clapped his hands loudly, startling everyone out of the daze of joohyun’s voice. ended the session. everyone trailed out of the room.

seulgi locked herself in a bathroom stall, struggling to breathe.

her hands shook all the way home. with all the pills she took she couldn’t sleep a wink that night and she was glad for it.

△

after the moth dream and the incident at the meeting, seulgi didn’t touch the Dreamy website for an entire week. and it was friday again.

and here she was at the support group again, sitting in her chair, not even looking up to check if joohyun was there.

she didn’t speak this time. the entire hour she spent staring at the abstract shapes on the carpet. wondering why they couldn’t just make it all one color.

when seven o'clock came, she walked out with the rest of the people, eyes glued to the godawful carpet. to the cement.

until someone was pulling her elbow and she was turned around to face joohyun. breathless pink-cheeked joohyun.

“i’m sorry.” exhale. inhale. “i’m really fucking sorry.”

so now they sat at a table in a fast food restaurant. where the heat of the melting evening was stilled and refrigerated through the air conditioning vents.

“it hurt when you pulled me apart like that,” she was saying. “in the dream.”

“so i pulled you apart back,” she said. “in real life.”

“and i’m sorry.” she took seulgi’s hand. setting off a trail of goosebumps up her arm from the coldness.

“i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry”

seulgi suddenly couldn’t see. there were too many tears obstructing her vision. she didn’t even know where they came from so suddenly.

and then joohyun was there. enveloping her in warmth and the smell of comfort.

seulgi held onto the material of her black t-shirt. real.

it’s been so long since she’d cried.

“meet me in your dreams.”

△

and seulgi does. she meets irene in her dreams every single day. she stops taking her pills. she falls asleep the moment she gets home early evenings.

sleep is addicting.

sleep is greedy and satisfying and never enough. like irene.

she starts skipping the support group meetings.

until she wakes up from a dream with too much red yarn to bleeding wrists staining her sheets.

△

seulgi began to take her pills again. she went back to the group meetings if only to see joohyun because she’d stopped dreaming as often. and because if she missed one more, hoseok was obliged by law to report it.

joohyun wasn’t there.

seulgi stared at her empty chair the entire time, not registering a single thing that was said.

after the meeting was over, seulgi held back to talk to hoseok. she waited by the door while hoseok talked to someone else.

the walls were gray, the door was gray, the carpet was an ugly pattern. it was all the same. someone’s notebook was laying on the floor. lonely and abandoned. a square of simple black among the rabid patterns.

seulgi took a few steps toward it and picked it up.

flipped open to the first page to look for a name but there wasn’t one. the owner of the notebook started writing their thing from the very first page. seulgi always left at least one or two blank pages at the front when she started a notebook. a beginning. an introduction. a cover page of sorts of just blank paper.

which really didn’t make sense logically but very few things in life did.

so right off the bat, seulgi was already annoyed with the owner of this notebook. she flipped through the pages to maybe get a sense of who this person was. or at least who to return it to.

most of the entries seemed to be notes on the group meetings. they sounded like they were written after and not during the meetings. which made sense because seulgi hadn’t noticed anyone taking notes during the meeting.

it was just general boring notes with a few psychology terms thrown around with gentle ease. impressed handwriting like they were pressing the pen too hard into the paper. seulgi was about to close it and give it to hoseok because he seemed like the most likely candidate. but then her eye caught her own name mentioned.

seulgi stopped flipping and doubled back. the page was a continuation of some boring observations about one of the meetings maybe a few weeks back. it seemed like one of the times seulgi wasn’t there because she didn’t remember any of the described things happening.

but then the boring narrative abruptly stopped and starting a new paragraph, seulgi read this:

“she’s a fucking storm. and i’m stuck on a boat and she’s going to drown me with her. in one of those dreams i’ll really drown with her. kang seulgi.

 ~~kang seulgi kang seulgi kang seulgi~~ ”

seulgi snapped the notebook shut without continuing to read. her pulse beat against her throat. she turned around and walked right out of the room, without as much as a goodbye to hoseok. she ran home and collapsed on her bed, pulling up the Dreamy website with shaking fingers.

 

_unfinished relief_

△▽

when seulgi woke up, there were tears soaking through her pillow. she swiped a hand at her wet face. stared at the wall for a bit and began to laugh at herself. quiet giggling laughs. they created goosebumps up and down her arms.

the heavy ache in her chest just gained another anchor.

she went back to not sleeping. for days at a time, not even a nap.

and sometimes she’d see irene, walking around with her floating hair. on the university campus, in seulgi’s own apartment. and seulgi stared after her. eyes unfocused.

she became sluggish. sat through her classes and didn’t understand a single thing that was said. like everyone around her was speaking in a foreign language underwater.

at night she sat on her bed and stared at the wall until her eyes started to water.

she went to her support group that friday. it was so ingrained in her muscle memory that before she even realized it, she was already in her wooden chair not listening to hoseok’s encouraging words. not even blinking an eye at the girl who was suddenly crying about something horrible she’d done. not even realizing she hadn’t brushed her hair. that she was still wearing the clothes from the day before.

she trailed back home after the clock hit seven. it was getting chilly in the evenings.

irene was walking by her side, hair floating all around like it wanted to rip itself off her skull and fly into the sky. seulgi ignored her.

shut the door in her face.

as she stepped out of her shoes, there was a knock on the door.

seulgi opened it to joohyun, whose face was so full of concern that seulgi stumbled. joohyun’s hand was on her elbow. and through her haze, seulgi could barely make out her words.

“i’m sorry,” she was saying. “i’m so so sorry.”

“i do, i love you,” she was saying. “i do.”

her hands were soft. caressing seulgi’s cheeks. wiping tears she didn’t know were there.

joohyun’s hair started to float a little. seulgi collapsed on her bed. and joohyun was right there with her. whispering things into her skin she couldn’t understand.

she only felt the warmth of seulgi’s chest. the pulse beneath her skin. the cold cold hands moving through her hair.

and then irene was in much clearer focus. because she was holding the back of seulgi’s head with her palm and her face was moving toward seulgi and seulgi closed her eyes just as their lips met.

and that’s how they stayed. lips pressed against lips. not even a kiss, just a touch. and seulgi’s arms were wrapping around irene’s neck so she could pull them closer. toes against toes. thighs pressed into thighs. stomach, chest, forehead. like two parts of a shoe pulled tightly together by the laces.

seulgi’s pulse was even, strong. her mind was clear like it’s only been so very few times in her life.

she moved their lips together until they were kissing properly. tangled their legs together. let her hands wander into the floating strands of darkness.

one of irene’s freezing hands was moving down her back until it reached the hem of her shirt. tracing a band of skin that was peeking out. it sent a shudder through seulgi.

and when irene’s thigh between her legs moved up higher than seulgi expected, she gasped into irene’s mouth. pulled at the roots of irene’s hair.

no one drowned this time.

 

and seulgi never said she loved her back.

 

_debbie & charlie (the true story) _

△

seulgi was in the hospital.

the tubes were ripping her wrists open. seungwan was sitting on a chair next to her, asleep.

“have you been taking your medication on time?” the doctors had asked.

“have you been taking sleeping pills?”

“something has been unbalancing the chemicals in your brain.”

“do you ever find yourself doing things you weren’t aware of?”

“have you given out your neuro id to someone untrustworthy?”

she had woken up bleeding from her ears this morning. seungwan had been knocking on her door because she’d slept through two days of classes.

now she closed her eyes again. but it was just skin covering her pupils. like closing the curtains on a house party. sleep didn’t come.

irene wasn’t there anymore.

she didn’t want to be awake.

“i don’t miss her anymore.” seulgi heard from her side.

“and i don’t want to miss you, too.”

seulgi’s eyes tipped open. gaze focused on the peach fuzz growing on seungwan’s arm. her brain shuddered, flipping everything around.

“but i don’t want to be here,” she replied.

“i don’t want to be here anymore.”

 

_five against six_

△

there was a point when everything came into perspective. the very last point before no return. the point of commitment.

the blinds serrated the wall into thin bluish stripes from the street lights outside. the clock ticked a steady rhythm.

seulgi was laying in her hospital bed, staring at the stripes of blue. it was a little past two in the morning.

one stripe said to continue with what she was doing. completely destroy herself. absolutely. until there was nothing of her left. and she wasn’t here anymore.

the next stripe said to suck it up. to fight. to get over it. to do everything in her possible means to get better. maybe even get a small chance at being happy at some point. to live.

and the next stripe said to die.

and to live.

and to die.

and to live and to die and to live.

and to die.

and to live.

△

it was the middle of fall now. seulgi was leaving class, feet crunching through dead leaves. everything blurred in gray tones.

she was taking all her pills on time, including her new prescription of sleeping pills that gave her empty restless sleep. but it was sleep nonetheless. her Dreamy account was deleted, she even called their customer service to make sure they erased her neuro id from their database.

she hadn’t missed a single support group meeting since summer. answered every single question hoseok directed at her. shared the things she was going through.

she’d ignored bae joohyun like she was a wall.

everything felt so forced. dragging feet through thick mud in a swamp.

“you had lights in your eyes for a bit,” seungwan had said. “but after the hospital they died.”

but when her mind was weaker, it missed the comfort of dreams. the comfort of dark. of irene.

but seulgi clenched her teeth and walked on, crunching all the death underneath her shoes.

 

_song 1_

△

it was nearing seven and for once in months seulgi allowed herself to look over at joohyun’s seat. but it was empty. seulgi blinked. but it was empty still and seulgi wondered for how long it’s been that way.

“is joohyun just gone for today?” she asked hoseok when the meeting was over.

hoseok’s eyebrows scrunched together like he was trying to understand something very difficult. “joohyun?”

seulgi nodded, shifting on her feet. “i noticed she wasn’t here today. but she might’ve been gone for longer.” she was starting to feel a little flustered. “we were… friends. and then we stopped talking and i was just wondering if she was okay.”

“joohyun,” hoseok repeated, as if trying really hard to remember something. “joohyun…”

“bae joohyun?” seulgi tried.

“bae joohyun,” hoseok repeated again. shook his head. “i don’t remember ever having a joohyun in the group. did you mean bang jonghyuk?”

seulgi stared at him. “no, it was bae joohyun. she always sat next to you. she didn’t talk much but she was always there.”

“seulgi,” hoseok said slowly, finally realizing something. “the seat next to me is always empty. on both sides.”

seulgi blinked fast a few times, a nervous laugh bubbling up in her throat. “right. sorry about that. see you around next week.”

when she got home, she wrestled her laptop onto her lap, flipping it open and typing in the Dreamy website. but nothing came up. she tried it in a search engine and got the typical generic results.

she tried “dreamy dream website” and finally found a small article buried on the third page of results.

something about how the company was sued and now ceased to exist. it didn’t even say why. the article itself seemed a little shady, too. not something seulgi would consider a trustworthy source.

she pushed her laptop to the side, suddenly very tired. all she could think of was irene, like a dam in her broke.

seulgi buried her face into the blankets and remembered the smell of joohyun and her cold cold hands shifting through her hair.

nothing made sense.

she was probably crazy.

and all she wanted was irene who made it all better. who made everything disappear. who built another world in her dreams.

seulgi’s hand reached into the drawer at her bedside table, pulling out a bottle of sleeping pills. the regular ones that didn’t react well with all her other medicine.

and she fell asleep.

 

_new eve_

▽

she was in a field. a dead yellow field with a few blue and red flowers dotted through. seulgi hadn’t been here in too long. her heart was beating out of her chest.

she looked around, at the colorless sky. it was all empty.

so she began walking, picking a random direction. it felt like ages, like centuries. the yellow grass was reaching to her chin. the petals form every flower she touched crumpled to the ground.

but the air was changing. something was shifting.

and irene was there. hair floating in every direction.

seulgi reached out to her and they were suddenly very close.

“where did you go?”

irene didn’t reply but said, “i found out how to drown.”

there was water lapping at their feet, steadily rising.

“and we don’t have to ever wake up,” she said.

the water was to their knees now. irene took her hand.

“and it’ll be forever,” she said.

she took her other hand.

“forever,” seulgi said, the last syllable of the word distorted as the water was suddenly above their heads and they were no longer breathing.

irene’s hair floated around them, strands of darkness. there was no ground beneath their feet.

seulgi smiled, bubbles caressing her face.

“forever,” she said.

  


**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/dissintegrate/)
> 
>  
> 
> (could you tell i wrote this after rereading fight club)


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